The Creature Chronicles
by Princess Sassafras
Summary: Magic potions, strange animal encounters, and in general...the supernatural. THE GUNDAM PILOTS FIND THEMSELVES WITH STRANGE NEW GIFTS! Unfinished.
1. Of Fins and Misfortune

The Creature Chronicles I

"Of Fins and Misfortune"

By: Princess Sassafras

Notes: This is pure fantasy! A magic potion and even more magical results. Quatre-centric, with Duo and Wufei as bystanders. Be surprised!

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The blue vial lay conspicuously by a pot, in which a small flowering cactus plant was blooming. The hot white light from the window cut a prism through it and made it sparkle like some rare gem. The cork was topped with a sterling fish's fin.

"It is especially potent to the Deep drinker," said the dark, squat saleslady from whom he had purchased it. Well…not purchased, really, she had given it to him for free.

"What do you mean by 'deep drinker?'" Quatre inquired, feeling the vial bite his fingers like ice. It was unnaturally cold to have been stored in a tent in desert clime.

"I mean, my darling," the woman ran one long white finger across his cheek, "that those whose spirits are deeper than most may find that this…" she tapped the vial in his hand, "works _especially_ well."

"Well," he said tentatively, "I hope that you do not think I am rude, but I do not believe in such things. And I do not take gifts from strangers." He tried to thrust it back into her hand, only to have her step nimbly backward, evading him.

"Well, _I_ am strange," said the woman with a definite note of pride and a swelling of her large bosom, "but as for such things, my dear, they are as real as you want them to be. And you may do with it as you will."

She smiled and kissed her fingertips and placed them on his brow, ignoring his outstretched hands and the vial, and then fluttered back behind the many scarves hanging from the top of the tent. He could hear her rummaging once more among her cluttered crates of oddities.

There it was, now, glinting in the sun. _To take it with me…_

He was leaving with Duo on a ship in two hours. They were bound for the Blue Islands, from which Wufei had signaled to them four days ago. There was said to be storage of Gundanium Alloy on the northwest side of the island, buried deep within the sand. Sensors could detect it, but they had not yet unearthed it at over two hundred feet down. They needed it for battle reconstruction of the Gundams, and for spare parts.

It would take them two days and two nights to reach the islands by boat. Gundams travel wasn't an option, or someone might figure out what they were up to.

Quatre finished packing his things quietly, with the forefront of his mind on his task, but his subconscious never straying from thoughts of the blue vial.

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Night on the boat made him ill. It bucked and spurred and he had already vomited up his scallops. Quatre loved the sea. Perhaps it was his overexcitement that was making him so queasy, the ever present question in the back of his mind: what was he to do with it? A large part of him couldn't keep from wanting it, and that was what frightened him.

_Nothing will happen! It is a fun faerie tale, nothing more! I'll drink it by the railing, and laugh when nothing happens. Unless it makes me sicker…but I can't get much sicker than this…_

The cold spray hit him as he crossed the deck to the weather-peeled white rail. He clenched the metal in his hands, and breathing the clean cold air he felt a bit better. He took the blue vial from his chest pocket. It was dark and bitingly cold against his palm. He twisted the silver fish fin and popped the cork, and leaned over it to sniff the contents of the vial. It smelled like the sea, only stronger: very salty and with a hint of something distinctly fishy. He was unsure of his choice now. But if it tasted ugly, he could always just spit it out. He decided.

He threw the liquid down his throat all at once. It burned immediately, like hot sulfur. He futilely tried to spit the remainder out, but it gelled to his throat and would not come up. He tried to make a sound, but his throat was closing, tighter and tighter as if… He wanted to cry out, but when he couldn't he began stumbling towards Duo's end of the cabin on deck. He was still clutching his hot throat when he felt a searing pain on either side of his neck, just below his ears. He pulled his hands away and saw blood. _Oh god…_

His legs no longer worked properly; they felt wobbly as if they had no bones, but thick like tire rubber. He collapsed onto the dark planks, trying to draw a single breath. His neck pained him even more than his legs, but not nearly as much as his lungs. The overwhelming need to breathe cut through him like a knife. He saw tiny flecks of light like starts crowd his vision. He felt weak. He tried to raise himself up to his knees…only to discover that he had none. He stared in silent alarm at what were once his legs, then higher…he had no crotch.

From navel to toe he was glistening slime in the crude shape of a fin. It looked as though he had just flopped out of the primordial ooze. He reached down to touch this new alien part of his body, then stared in shock at his arm. His skin was tinted blue, as if from frostbite. But he didn't feel chill anymore, he felt like he was on fire. It was because he couldn't breath, right? Didn't have any air, right?

Every so often the sea spray would hit the back of his aching neck, and he would feel momentary relief. _Oh, no, it's the sea…!_

He turned to look at it, and suddenly it seemed to him a vast oasis. He craved it with an unchaste longing, one that felt only natural. It offered him the only comfort there was.

He propelled himself toward the edge of the ship by his arms, and slid himself beneath the lowest railing and into the blissful brine. It slid up and over his body like a cool sheet over fevered skin. He took a gasp, and found that he could breathe. At least…oxygen was getting to his lungs somehow. He felt a tickling sensation much like peeling off dead skin from healing sunburn. He looked down and saw the slimy encasement rolling off his fin, much like a discarded snake's skin, and drifting slowly towards the black bottom like a pale ghost.

He flicked his tail. He sailed fifteen feet in mere seconds before coming to a halt. He gave his new tool a more powerful wave, and flew twice as far and twice as fast. He passed several strange fish, but did not care. His heart was beating madly as he flew just beneath the tossing waves, the ship far above and behind him. His tail was a powerhouse of motion and jetted him in whichever direction he pleased, his pale arms streamlining to his torso. He stopped, not even breathless, to examine himself just beneath the surface and in the pure moonlight. There were tiny webbed increments between each set of blue-tinted fingers. His arms and his chest—his entire upper half—were devoid of hair. His tail was the most stunning aquamarine, with glistening angelfish fins that tapered into long curved tips.

He laughed at his own beauty, and swam far for hours, peering every once and a while at the night-sea creatures through his blue haze of pleasure.

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Dawn came, and stretched around the island like warm arms. The tide rolled in and out.

The ship had docked with no sign of Quatre Winner, though Duo and Wufei searched frantically from deck to deck. While they were exploring the water line, they spotted a pale form being bolstered up against the shore by the pressing tide. They began to run.

It was Quatre, naked and pale, curled among some rock and weed. They turned him over and listened for a heart beat. When they found one, they frantically began to administer CPR. Quatre choked up no water, only moaned occasionally, and tossed his fair head from side to side. He had the smallest of smiles on his white lips.

"Quatre! Quatre, man, answer me!" Duo's warm voice, concerned.

He awoke later, wrapped in towels and leaning against the base of a tree, and Duo and Wufei were beside him. The ship's medic and a few members of the crew stood several paces back, looking on anxiously. Duo had Quatre's face in his hands, and Quatre was surprised at how much he had missed warm human touch.

"…Duo?" The sun was too bright, and it hurt to see.

"Oh, God…oh, God Quatre, we thought…"

"We thought you were dead." It was Wufei's cool voice. "We thought you had been thrown into the sea."

_I didn't get thrown…_

Duo's voice again, and his hands on Quatre's shoulders. "I heard a noise up top in the early morning while it was still dark. I climbed out to look, and saw your shoes lying on deck. I looked over the railing, but…God, you weren't there! I thought you were _gone_!"

"No," said Quatre, squinting up at their faces in the light. "No, I wasn't dead. But I think I might have been dreaming."

No one knew what to say to this, so they wrapped him up and helped him back aboard the ship, and he sailed back across the sea to his home to rest. They sent him periodic word of the operation. It went smoothly, and he was glad to hear of it.

He spent the next few weeks in a dreamlike state, sleeping during the daytime, and taking very long showers at night.

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	2. Of Maw and Mishap

The Creature Chronicles II

"Of Maw and Mishap"

By: Princess Sassafras

Notes: This is SO based on Catwoman, the movie (with Halle Berry)! If you aren't laughing too hard it might actually be good. Trowa-centric.

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The wind rushed by his ears in whistling knives as he ran. He threw one long leg after the other over the jagged pieces of broken wall littering the area he had just demolished. An alarm sounded behind him. His breathing was harsh and jagged; he was by far the best long distance runner alive for his age and, broadly, his profession, but he had reached his sixth mile running with no stop. Each dark military building sounded an alarm to the next in a domino line, and it seemed they were just behind him and closing in. The next alerted building might be in front of him, and then…

He had already broken runners high and was slowly descending into the dregs of his energy resources. _One more wall. One more wall. Wufei is waiting with the jeep at the edge of town. One more…_

He could just see his fellow pilot's face when he told him he'd flipped the motorcycle into a nearby shop. Cat in the middle of the road—black as pitch—and he hadn't seen until it was too late. The shop had, coincidentally, exploded.

Thus: the pandemonium.

He passed the line of military buildings more quickly than he expected, putting him in the center of the town where real brick houses were standing in uniform rows, but the wail of the sirens could still be clearly heard on the night air. Trowa veered left through an alleyway, then right past a black metal fence that ran for at least a mile in one direction. The Zoo.

Police sirens were added to the sound of the alarm. He could hear them getting closer. He leapt the black fence without a moment's hesitation.

He passed the ticket booth and the pizza stand. He hopped over the now low and wooden separating fences with ease, but did not slow his pace. The cages and man-made lagoons were dark, devoid of activity. No doubt the animals had been put away in their own private quarters for the night, revamping themselves after a day of being poked at by snotty children.

He sprinted across the dark bridge leading into the area, which presumably held birds and turtles and water mammals. When he emerged on the other side, he saw something spectacular. The reptile cave! And it was right at the other side of the black fence. _I'll hear them when they pass_, he thought smugly. _This is where they will end up when they don't find me, before they start their search in here, if they do. And if they do I'll be long gone in the other direction, back the way I came._

He turned in that direction, slowing down enough to climb the steps that led to the entrance of the cement cave. He did not, however, slow down enough to pick up a fallen easel by the opening. On it was a white sign, the words of which may have been important.

He let the darkness surround him, coaxing his pulse to drop and his spinning head to still. The dark wall was to his left—he felt the fake lumpy smoothness of it against his hand—and the long row of little windows were to his right. Each Plexiglas tank was illuminated from within by a faint green light. The snakes were gone, too, and the tanks were drained. He noticed that above each tank was an empty space. He knew each top was covered in Plexiglas also, but the space between the tops of the tanks and the ceiling was just enough for a man to squeeze into, should he need to. Trowa figured he might need to.

He heard the sirens nearing. That was good. He crouched to listen. He heard them passing. That was really good. He stood quickly and turned to go back the way he came…but then the sirens stopped. They stopped right outside the closest entrance to the black gate. A flashlight beam ricocheted of the inner wall of the cave, making him jump. They were too close for him to run. They'd have him.

He grabbed the edge of the nearest and biggest tank and levered himself up and into the thin space just beneath the lumpy ceiling. He slowed his breathing to nothing. His heart rate to zip. And he waited.

There in the darkness he heard something moving. At first he had thought it was the wind against the cave mouth, but he would have heard that long ago. It was a strange rustling noise…near his feet. He stayed impossibly still, and listened hard in the green-tinted semi-darkness for another sound.

No sound came. Only a sensation. A cool rolling sensation on the back of his left ankle. The feeling of the belly of a snake. He panicked, and, without meaning to, let his ankle twitch ever so slightly.

The snake shrank back from him and emitted that low definitive hiss. Trowa tried not to move, but it made no difference. The thing was angry, and it laid a deep striking blow to his calf. Trowa held back his yelp of surprise and pain. He could hear men's voices outside the cave mouth. They were passing through. Their clumsy footfalls echoed against the ceiling, but all Trowa could hear was his own heart in his ears.

They passed.

They passed him by, the dumb shits, and they left out of the other side.

He had to get out of there, now; his leg did not feel at all normal. The snake was indeed a viper.

Poison is not a good thing, especially when you need the stamina to run. He weighed his options. Elevating his heart rate would spread the poison quicker, andthat could mean possible death. Moving too slowly could mean his capture.

He almost preferred death to capture.

The snake had retreated; he could no longer hear or feel it nearby. Just to be sure, though, he moved in incredibly small increments, very slowly, towards the edge of the tank. First his uninjured foot, then leg, then hip. Finally he managed to slide his entire body down to the ground, where he crouched and ripped open his pants-leg. Definitely poison. The puncture wounds were surrounded by a deep red tint that laced menacingly across his entire lower calf. The area was swollen; the tissue had risen at least an inch above what was normal.

_Damn it._

Trowa crept to the cave opening, limping slightly. He listened. No men. No sirens. No lights. Even the alarm sounded far away. So he slunk…ever so slowly…past each tree…past each cage…feeling the poison spreading with each staggered breath.

He caught something out of the corner of his eye. He feared hallucination…for he could have sworn he saw a large tawny tail around the side of the next and biggest cage. He passed it off as a bit of rope…or possibly a hallucination. It was plausible, seeing as he had no idea what the creature that had bitten him looked like. Or what it could do to him.

He carried on, but in a state of sheer agony. _What in God's name was that serpent? Mamba? Coral?_ He prayed neither. Rattler he could handle, but it hadn't feltlarge enough to be an adult rattler.

Without warning, his leg gave, and he sank to his knees in the shadow of the cage. _I have to make it; if I am found…_

He started, sensing a presence.

He looked up in alarm: there, bathed in the moonlight like a proud statue of what it really was, stood the biggest lion Trowa had ever seen.

Now, snakes were not Trowa's specialty. But lions were.

But that didn't matter now. A lion couldn't help him in this situation. A doctor maybe…a really good doctor.

The lion stared, its dark eyes and mottled nose glistening damply. Its whiskers twitched. It lowered its shaggy head and set one huge paw forward. It began a slow approach. After several failed attempts to rise, Trowa could do nothing but watch. _Great. Bitten by a snake, and now mauled by a lion. If I live, Duo will have me put in the Guinness Book of World Records. _

When the formidable animal was only a few paces away, it lowered its proud head and looked—looked—directly into Trowa's face. And for some reason, the man could no tear his gaze away from the beast.

The poison seemed to throb in his very veins; he knew he had mere minutes to live. It was, perhaps, even too late for a doctor. The lion took another step. Trowa felt his body sway, and fall, and hit the pebbled ground. He was staring up at the starless sky, which was soon filled with the hulking yellowish outline of the lion. As his vision blurred, he saw it open its mouth. As he was just beginning to slip into blackness, it opened its enormous mawas if to swallow him. Instead, Trowa felt his own mouth opening as if to swallow something. The lion emitted an earth-shattering roar.

Trowa blacked out.

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He had a fantastic dream. In it he was running at superhuman speed through the same army base. But instead of running from the alarm, he was running towards it. His thighs flexed powerfully, the muscles bunching tight and lean beneath his skin. The wind was a beautiful rush around him; he must have been moving as fast as an in-town car. He bared his teeth in anticipation.

He wanted to cheat them. _Let them catch me now._

He knew they never would. He saw them gathered at the base of the building next to the broken shop. He came into the light too quickly for them to aim with their guns. He pressed back on his heels in the run, readying his entire body.

He sailed over them in an impossible leap, and landed on the dark rooftop. Their bullets littered thin air behind him. He danced from rooftop to rooftop,wonder at his ability pushing him further. He jumped from one end of the town to the other in quarter his normal time. He ran further, past the edge of town and into the open indigo fields. He sprinted on, overwhelmed by the sheer joy of movement.

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He awoke to the sound of a male voice nearby.

"Trowa?"

He cracked one eye open lazily, only to see nothing on either side of himself, just a sheer drop. He calmly assessed the situation: he had been sleeping stretched out on one of the wooden beams above his—he looked over the edge to be sure—yes, his bed. He was ten feet up, his legs draped over the side and a torn piece of—he checked to be very sure—armchair, yes, beneath his head.

Quatre's blond head bobbed into view beneath him, his pale face turned up in surprise. "Trowa…do you, uh, need to be alone right now?"

"No. I'm fine." In truth, he felt very fine. And very fat. His belly bulged more than normal and he had trouble repositioning himself on the beam. He finally managed to drop down, and, hanging from the beam by his arms, he swung himself over his bed. He landed on it clumsily, and fell.

"Trowa…" Quatre looked extremely concerned, though he seemed to be trying to disguise it.

"I'm fine." Trowa insisted. He spotted the mangled armchair across the room. He assessed his broken window. _How on earth…_

"I'm glad you're back, Trowa. Wufei was upset when you didn't get out in time, but we heard you banging about in here in the early morning…and the cook said she saw you coming across the lawn. So we knew you were safe."

"Yes I am." _But I shouldn't be. Not after all that._

"Quatre…"

The blond Arabian man turned, and gave him the undisguised version of his earlier look. "Yes, Trowa."

"Would you believe me if…well, I think I had the _strangest_ dream." This statement was so verbose and seemingly out of character for Trowa, even to his own ears, but Quatre didn't seem in the least bit surprised.

"Really?" He said, moving closer to where Trowa was positioned on the bed. He leaned in secretively, until their heads were less than two feet apart.

"I'll tell you mine if you tell me yours."

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HA HA! What'll I think of next…I'm so insane!

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	3. Of Fire and Blood

Part III of the Creature Chronicles

"Of Fire and Blood"

By: Princess Sassafras

Notes: Wufei-centric. And you may even detect a hint of Spiderman comic lore.

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There was something under the safe-house floorboards, and Wufei could hear it moving. At first he suspected possum, or raccoon, or even cats too far out in the wild to be tame. But the scrabbling and scratching he heard wasn't…normal.

He dropped a dish in the kitchen when, through the countertop above the sink pipes, he felt a sudden and powerful vibration. He kept feeling these strange vibrations all through the house.

They—he and Barton—found several cleanly scraped skeletons of foxes in the snow, and some birds with only the heads and feathers and bones left in neat piles. It was quite unnerving; what creature could be so careful, so precise?

Wufei knew…he wasn't sure how he knew, but he did…that the creature that had created those bone piles was under their floor. He resolved to be rid of it.

He covered himself from neck to toe in thick beaten leather, and wore a black ski cap and protective eyewear. He armed himself with tools for removing boards and bricks, a gun, a stunner, and his bowie knife. He was glad for Duo's absence; he most certainly would have gotten James Bond jokes.

He began his demolition of the lower eastern side of the northern wall at daybreak, when Barton had gone into the city fifty-three miles away to investigate the source of an unknown mobile suit shipment.

He busily chipped away at the brick with a small pick and hammer, finally reaching the insulated space behind. He had created a hole just big enough for a man of his size and flexibility to crawl through. He wriggled his way inside. Once in, he trained the yellow beam of his flashlight along each section of the darkness, until he saw the way was clear. He crawled forward.

The thick dust and mold crept up on his nostrils, assailing them. He was grateful for his protective eyewear, but it did nothing to help his now itching lungs.

He dragged his belly in the dirt at a very slow rate, pausing every few seconds to run the flashlight along each supportive wooden beam and the shadows that surrounded it.

He put one hand before the other, and each knee, inching… until he felt something soft and broken crunch beneath his right hand. He pulled his hand away, sticky, and put the beam of the flashlight on the ground in front of him. A half mangled bird lay in the dirt. And his hand was sticky with blood. It was still warm, the corpse, and not eaten. Wufei felt a thrill of fear. And he did not often feel such things.

He heard the noise again, suddenly. And this time it was not muffled by any floorboards; it was right in front of him. He raised the beam, slowly, and found himself staring into the face of a lizard.

No. No, that was impossible. No lizard was that large, not even a Komodo. It was low to the ground like a Komodo, but its legs were not as awkward. It glimmered in the dark, a deep black-green, and its eyes were like smoldering coals. Something rushed against his face in the dark, like a wind, and he saw the shadow of…great wings…half-unfolding above the lizard's head. Its long throat bulged suddenly at the center in a great red bubble, which flashed bright like a bowl of fire, and then rolled up its neck to rest just beneath its jaw. Wufei knew that it _was_ fire. His fingers were on his Bowie, but the creature had its own weapon at the ready. If Wufei showed in any way that he was a threat, this cold creature would let loose its torrent. Wufei would die. So he remained perfectly still.

It took a long time for the bubble to lower itself, and then sink back down into the creature's rumbling belly (thus the vibrations). This gave Wufei time to study it.

Its sleek nose tapered into a horned head, then sleeked back out into a serpent-like neck. Its body was low and thick, but its feet were almost like a bird of prey's. The claws on these scaly feet were pearly white and over four inches long. The tips of fangs dripping something—probably not pleasant—lay curved against its grinning jaw. And he heard the swishing of an unseen…tail.

Heat flooded Wufei's body at the realization of what this terrifying thing was. He found himself not just afraid, but overjoyed. Excitement laced his blood. _What can this mean? That my ancestors did not just talk of myths, but of reality? That the Dragon Clan is based on something real, not fictional? That this creature is…_

The creature moved.

It side wind-stepped—just like a Komodo—towards him so quickly he feared for a moment that it would close its jaws around his unprotected arm or head. But it merely lowered its triangle face and stared at him with dangerous red eyes. Very intelligent eyes.

It seemed to grin wider at him in the dark—and Wufei knew he didn't imagine it. It raised a clawed foot and lowered it sharply, sinking one long pearly claw into the back of Wufei's exposed hand. Wufei let out a hiss of pain, but was too afraid to move or jerk away. The creature watched him, its long curved mouth raising even more in a grin, exposing rows of jagged teeth. After a few painful moments, in which the creature dug its claw through his flesh, it relented and drew away. But still it watched him, even as he clutched his bleeding hand to his chest.

Its grin subsided.

Though he felt pain, Wufei felt no greater fear than he had before, nor any new hostility. This creature was not evil, only curious. Somehow Wufei knew that, like a child with a baby animal, it only pressed down to see how far something would bend before it broke. To see how much it took to cause it injury. And then it had done as a child would also, and stared in fascination. He was to this thing exactly what it was to him. A curiosity. Something new. A strange mystery.

The only difference between them was that Wufei was still afraid, though he did not think that the creature was. He bound his bleeding hand with a rag, the glistening lizard watching him quietly all the while.

He shortly noticed something he had not noticed before: a glimmer apart from the body of the thing. Adjacent to its rear, where Wufei supposed a tail must be curled, were rounded shimmering shadows in a similar hue as the dragon's eyes. As Wufei stared he became more and more certain that these were eggs. The creature was, after all, reptilian. And it was, if those really were eggs, female. Wufei was so intent upon the eggs he must have swayed a fraction of an inch in their direction. Sensing some danger perhaps, the great lizard shifted abruptly, throwing her body in front of her brood to face him, her throat bubbling and her belly thrumming. This time she let her instincts fly; Wufei threw his body to the ground as a jet of searing fire shot over his head. He had to get out before he was killed!

The creature was backing up quickly now, curling itself protectively around its treasures. Wufei, too, began to back up. He inched backwards until the only things he could see were two red eyes in the shadows, and then until he could see nothing and his lower half met the cold outside world. He had not realized how very warm it had been under the house.

He rushed inside to tend his wound.

The puncture was deep, almost through his hand, but it was not bleeding very much. In fact, the blood seemed to be coagulating at the site of the puncture, and turning a strange shade of deep green. Wufei's heart raced as he saw it, his breath choking in his throat. _What poison have I been injected with? How long do I have until I die?_

It didn't pain him anymore; that was the strange thing. His hand felt swollen and it was throbbing, but there was no pain. He began to feel, as he sat there watching his own blood turn green and clot, and the wound reseal itself, that a great burning sensation was spreading throughout his body. The cold room seemed to melt around his smoldering skin. Did he have a fever?

He sat at the kitchen counter for hours, it seemed, watching his wound heal fully, until only a strange smudged outline was left in its place. The heat in him peaked and then subsided, centering itself in the pit of his belly, just above his loins. He accepted this quietly, but still felt the nagging fear that he was experiencing some sort of slow death.

He heard the door open and then shut, and Trowa's footsteps on the planks. He sat silent, still stunned, until he felt Trowa's form bending over him.

"Are you ill?" Trowa asked, matter of fact.

"I am not sure." Wufei replied truthfully.

Trowa paused for a moment, and then when Wufei said nothing else, proceeded to remove his coat and deposit his belongings on the kitchen table. Then he turned around again. It was not like him to ask so many questions, but if Wufei had looked up at the other man he would have noticed his pique of interest.

"What has happened?" he asked.

Wufei thought how to best reply. "That…thing…under the floorboards. I…_met_ it today."

"_Met_?" Trowa now stared at him very keenly.

"Yes, well, it isn't…normal. It…" here Wufei held up his pale and perfectly healed hand, "…_pierced_ me, but the wound is _gone_. It has healed! But it wasn't normal either; it barely bled! And the thing…it is still there. _Down there_. And I feel…as if…I might be _dying_. Or…_changing_." Wufei frightened himself with that last revelation; even he had not expected to say it.

After such an impossible revelation, what could Wufei expect but Trowa's concern for his mental health? Or his actual health? Perhaps the poison.

But Trowa stared at him intently for a while, obviously deep in thought, until he came and sat across from Wufei at the counter. Looking purposefully away from Wufei and out the kitchen window, he said quietly, "You're not dying, or you would know it."

"I KNOW that Barton!" Wufei exploded. "I KNOW THAT, DAMNIT, BUT I DO NOT FEEL…CORRECT! I am…!" Wufei suddenly found himself incapable of speech. Or he could have spoken, but he feared that he would have injured his comrade. For the heat had rushed from the pit of his belly to his throat with such a quick intensity he knew it could be nothing other than fire. He choked on it, struggling to push it back down.

Trowa was staring at him again, and after watching his silent struggle, said quite plainly, "What is one more strange gift…to strange and gifted men like us?"

Wufei stared at him in amazement for a long moment.

Then he pulled himself upward and went across the kitchen to get a glass of cold water.

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